You would have to be very young or have lived a very sheltered life to not know who Bob Ross was. Even if you’ve never seen his painting show (live or a rerun) the good-natured parodies are still occasionally aired.

I grew up expecting to make a career for myself in art – mostly fine drawing, but some painting, though my last actual class in oil painting was waaaaay back in high school. I’ve continued to work in art as a passionate hobby (see my blog for reviews of other art books) but working in oil paints is something I’ve never quite learned well and would like to know better. And here comes Painting With Bob Ross: Learn to Paint in Oil Step by Step! Perfect timing!

The problem with trying to learn an art form – any art form – simply by a book is that no matter how many ‘steps’ you include something is missing. And too often (at least for me) you can look at the pictures of the different steps and think “wait…how did they get all that?!”

I don’t have the background in oil paints that I’d like and I’ll admit that I was lost really early on in this book. One of the earlier chapters is “Basic Painting Techniques”. I know the materials and a general concept of oil painting (and how it’s different from watercolors and acrylics [which I’ve used]) but I didn’t understand the concept of ‘loading two colors’ or how to use a paint knife (I’ve never used one). Without seeing this in action I really couldn’t quite understand it. And unfortunately, if you don’t understand this basic technique, the rest of the book is near;y pointless since it is used in every painting featured here. And no matter how well you explain it (“Pull your paint mixture out very flat on your palette, hold the knife straight up and “cut” across the mixture to load the long edge of the blade with a small roll of paint. Holding the knife straight up will force the small roll of paint to the very edge of the blade. “) it really does need to be seen.

Something I also hadn’t really noticed before until I read through this book was how many of the paintings look alike. This is formulaic painting. This is fine as the results can be beautiful to look at and cathartic to paint.

The book recommends not just certain types of paints or brushes, but specific brands as well. I always find this highly suspicious. It feels like advertising and that the book is there to sell paints or thinners or brushes – not to help people paint. Now if there was mention of why the specific items (blends better, doesn’t leave bristle hairs, etc), then perhaps I’d feel better about it.

Even though this is labeled as a ‘learn to paint’ book, I don’t feel quite prepared enough to read the book and put my own brush or knife to canvas (and I had some canvasses ready). However, I still would like to try some of these techniques, but I think I need to get a little more basic learning before I’m ready for it.

Looking for a good book? Painting with Bob Ross by Walter Foster Creative Team is a nice looking book but the reader will need a little more skill than being ready to “Learn to paint” to take advantage of the lessons in this book.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

Dr. Laura Bates had been told that maximum-security prisoner are beyond rehabilitation and Bates, an English professor and believer in the power of Shakespeare’s plays, took that as a challenge.

Bates holds classes in Shakespeare’s plays with prisoners who sign up to take the classes. She begins regular meetings in a detention ward with maximum security prisoners being held in solitary confinement with one of the most notorious inmates – Larry Newton who was sentenced to life without parole at age 17 for murder. What comes from the classes surprises Bates, who anticipated a struggle to get prisoners – many of whom had little education – to understand Shakespeare, much less discuss it intelligently. But what Bates (and most of us reading this book) forget is that this is, literally, a captive audience. These are men with nothing but time on their hands to think about what they are reading.

One of the surprises that comes through is how these men associate some of Shakespeare’s characters as imprisoned, usually by their own thoughts and deeds, much as these students are imprisoned physically. Clearly some of these insights can only come from someone who is incarcerated.

This is definitely an interesting read and for those who believe in the power of Shakespeare to speak about what it means to be human in a way that everyone can understand, this would seem to be more proof of just that. And what Newton and the other inmates have to say about Hamlet and Macbeth and the other characters and plays addressed truly is insightful, yet the book starts to grow repetitive and Bates appears to understand this and begins to add more personal information about how she came to begin this program, the dangers, and the rewards. This becomes more of a memoir than a Shakespeare study (note that the cover as depicted above reads “a memoir”) which is too bad because it’s the Shakespeare study that is most fascinating. The problem with most memoirs is that the memoirist remembers his or herself in the best of light.

I am glad that I read this and I will probably recommend this to friends who might find this sort of book interesting, but with a few caveats.

Looking for a good book? Shakespeare Saved My Life by Laura Bates is a fascinating look at the power of the Bard’s words, even to hardened criminals, but the memoir portion of the book surrounding the Shakespeare insight, pales slightly.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

If you don’t know Harlan Ellison then you should correct that immediately by going out and reading some of his work. He’s an under-recognized, under-appreciated author – though certainly not for a lack of trying, as Harlan was often pretty vocal about his talent.

One of Ellison’s biggest claim to fame was for writing the Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever” – long a fan favorite and one of the few award-winning episodes. However… big sigh…

Ellison long claimed that the powers-that-be at Star Trek not only ruined his original script by having so many different people rewrite it, but they then threw salt into the wound by claiming anywhere and everywhere that Ellison made some major mistakes … claims that were outright lies.

Anyone that has followed Ellison even slightly knows that he was very vocal and aggressive when fighting claims and crimes against himself. This book was his last word (hopefully?) on the subject. Here he lays out every claim against what he had originally written and he argues those claims, point by point. Specifically he is arguing with the claims of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who often spoke about the episode and Ellison’s problematic script at Star Trek conventions to throngs of fans who hung on every Roddenberry word.

Ellison often points out when and where claims were voiced and just as often chastises the fans he claims believed every word of Roddenberry because of how the fans glorified or even deified him.

And then Ellison shares the original treatment and the original script (that he, Ellison, sent to the Writers Guild Of America where it won the award for Best Episodic Drama on Television for the year). And then another version of the script, and finally a number of Star Trek-related personalities that Ellison enlisted to comment on his behalf in regards to the script. People such as Dorthy Fontana (the Star Trek story editor who contributed to the rewrites), David Gerrold – famed for the Trouble With Tribbles Star Trek episode(s), Walter (Chekov) Koenig, Leonard (Spock) Nimoy, DeForest (McCoy) Kelley, and George (Sulu) Takei.

If you are a fan of Star Trek and haven’t already read the story of, arguably, the most popular episode, then you really should pick this up and give it a read.

For me, this was a refresher. I’ve read the original script a few different times but I had forgotten the vitriol with which Ellison spews his case. It’s sad, really, that he harbored a grudge for so long, and with such fury. Though he complains bitterly of the Star Trek fans who believed Roddenberry, he clearly needs their approval. He won an award for the original script. He won a lawsuit against Paramount in regards to the lies said about him in regards to the script. And yet he still clearly has such anger and wasn’t ready to rest until the last of those driveling fans would acknowledge that HE was RIGHT.

As a teenager, I loved Ellison’s anger as much as I loved his command of language and storytelling ability. Today, I’m just sad that he never quite got over this moment in history.

As a side note … I was reading this and one other Harlan Ellison book (review already published) when Harlan Ellison passed away. While it is common for me to be reading more than one book at a time, it is rare for me to read more than one by the same author, so there was a strange sort of kismet in the air that I would be twice absorbed in the works of Harlan Ellison when he left the mortal realm.

Looking for a good book? Harlan Ellison’s The City on the Edge of Forever is a collection of his various version of the popular Star Trek script, along with his anger at how he was treated in regards to that script. It is required reading for Star Trek fans.

Although I’ve been drinking bourbon for a few decades (as the primary alcohol in my Manhattans) I admit to knowing very little about it other than I prefer bourbon to most other whiskeys. Brian F. Haara’s Bourbon Justice shares not just a little history of bourbon, but shows us how this distinctly American alcohol laid the foundation for many of our modern consumer protection laws.

Americans have always seemed to me to be rather litigious and so it seems quite appropriate that bourbon (one of the factors for the alcohol to be called a bourbon is that it has to be made in America) has set the stage for a number of American laws.

Right off the bat we learn that it took lawsuits and a decision by the President of the United States, to determine what constitutes a bourbon. Then we embark on trademark and brand name decisions that still affect us today.

We learn about puffery (there’s a legal definition) and exaggeration and truth in labeling – something which is still an issue today and has often been a source of contention between various bourbon manufacturers. We even learn a little bit about bourbon and Prohibition.

What is presented here is really rather fascinating. There were times when I couldn’t believe that someone had, perhaps, copied a label so much in order to trick a consumer into believing their inferior brand was actually a different, more expensive brand. Or that a family couldn’t use their family name on a bottle because the rights had been sold generations earlier.

Yet with all that’s here, it doesn’t feel very complete. Maybe this is it. Maybe the ten chapters of this book really do make up all laws brought about by, for, and against bourbon manufacturers. Or maybe it’s at least all the important lawsuits. But it just doesn’t feel that way. I get the sense (and I can’t quite say why) that this just skims the surface.

Haara does a really fine job of presenting his information and the book is well researched. Nearly a fifth of this slim book is made up of Acknowledgements, Notes, Table of Authorities (court case references), and an Index.

I did appreciate the “Tasting Notes” mixed in with the book, in which different bourbons are highlighted and detailed. I will definitely refer to this in the future when I need to pick up another bottle.

The bottom line, however, for me, is that I don’t think I am any better informed when it comes to selecting my bourbons. Who actually manufactures my favorite drink, what it consists of, and where it comes from, can still be obfuscated enough, legally, that it would take some pretty intense research to know. I guess I’ll keep going just based on my tastes.

Looking for a good book? Bourbon Justice by Brian F. Haara takes a detailed look at how the beginnings of bourbon in American also brought about early lawsuits, many of which are either still in place or at least set the bar for today’s consumer protection laws. It is an interesting read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, though Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

GRAPHIC NOVEL WEEK

Of course this isn’t, technically speaking, a graphic novel, so why should I include a review during my Graphic Novel Week? As the subtitle boasts: “Awesome female characters from comic book history.” Every character mentioned here comes from comics, whether strips or books, print or digital, and comics of course, are the root of the graphic novel.

Hope Nicholson’s The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen is an astounding historical look at some of the stronger female characters to appear in comics since the 1930’s. Not all of them are “superwomen” – as in, a hero with super powers – but all should be considered “super women.” The collection is culled by Nicholson, a publisher and comics fan, and is certainly somewhat subjective, but the research here … the uncovering of some old and often forgotten characters is really tremendous. I’ve highlighted a good number of these characters with the intentions of looking to read their adventures. Unfortunately most of them published before 2000 are not reprinted and difficult to find (which makes it more interesting to get this glimpse of them).

But as with nearly any collection of this sort, those of us with even a modest, minimum knowledge of comics will wonder why some are included and others are not. Where’s Veronica from the Archie comics, if Little Lulu is the “Hero of the Decade” for the 1930’s? And Barbarella and Vampirella make the list, but Storm and Kitty Pryde of the X-Men don’t?

In some cases Nicholson seems to go for the obscure over the famous – though not always. We still get Ms. Marvel (times two) and Batgirl and Witchblade and Silk Spectre. We even get Maika Halfwolf from the graphic novel/comics series Monstress (volume two just won a Hugo Award this week as I write this) which shows how current Nicholson is on her reading.

I enjoyed learning about a lot more strong female characters in what I have always perceived as a male market (Nicholson puts that into perspective as well) and the history of the characters, and why Nicholson believes they are strong characters, despite (sometimes) being overly sexualized in appearance or character.

Part of what makes this such a delightful read is Nicholson’s casual, friendly demeanor in her writing style. Her commentary (I almost consider them ‘asides’) are usually sarcastically fun (“I guess reading tales about making our with your dead best friend’s husband is fun for the whole family”).

I’m not sure that I’m interested in knowing more about all the characters revealed here (“One story features Nibbil engaging in balloon sex – that is, sex with word balloons”), but my interest is piqued with most of these superwomen. Thanks, Hope Nicholson, and I’ll look forward to a Volume 2!

Looking for a good book? The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen by Hope Nicholson is a wonderful history of strong women in comics from the 1930’s to today.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

* * * * * *

The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen: Awesome Female Characters from Comic Book History

Fandom … of any sort, really … looks pretty much the same, no matter what the generation or what the object of a fan’s interest might be.

Patricia Gallo-Stenman, now an adult, spent her teenage years keeping a diary which chronicled her fanaticism for all things Beatles, as well as the typical teen-girl musings on subjects such as boys, school, and parents. Ms. Gallo-Stenman would go on to become a staff writer for a Philadelphia newspaper and, despite a teenager’s anxiety that it wouldn’t happen, a responsible adult and parent.

Gallo-Stenman (then simply Gallo) was a teen attending a Catholic high school where the strict nuns did not want to see anything Beatles in the school – even inside the lockers – and so the girls got pretty good at hiding their memorabilia. Reading through the teenager’s complaints about nun strictness and enthusiasm for the lads from Liverpool, one can’t help but see the plight of teen girls everywhere – those who came before the Fab Four, and those fighting through adolescence today.

Where Gallo deviates, perhaps, from the ‘norm’ is her drive and push to find ways to get close to the Beatles, beyond becoming part of a mob of screaming girls outside a hotel or concert hall. Though she and a friend or two are clever enough to hide out at the back entrance to said hotels and concert halls, it’s to no avail. But when she learns that Victor Spinetti (an actor who appeared with The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night) is performing in a stage production in town, she meets with him after the show and a life-long friendship with the personable performer develops (and she becomes the head of his own fan club). He provides her with insight and autographs of the lads when he works with them (on Help! and Magical Mystery Tour).

In addition to her diary writing, Gallo pens a column for teens for the local paper, going beyond just news about The Beatles but sharing tips about a lot of pop culture that teens could find interesting.

There were a few moments when I was almost embarrassed reading this personal reflection and I thought how brave Gallo is to put her younger self on display this way. But again, although this book is billed and sold as an insider’s look at being a ‘Beatlemaniac’ it really does address the adolescent’s desire to find ones path – to see a world bigger and beyond the home. It is interesting to read her slow discovery that maybe she and Paul McCartney never really will meet, date, and marry. The young teen sees it as a hope, a dream, but the older teen begins to see that it was a dream that never would be.

As a book with a connection to the Beatles, it was definitely interesting. As a book that examines teenage social interest and anxiety, it is tremendous. Together it is a really fun read with some nostalgia.

Looking for a good book? Diary of a Beatlemaniac by Patricia Gallo-Stenman is a wonderful read on a variety of levels: Beatles, sociology, history, memoir.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

There aren’t very many performers/actors that I admire as much as I do Dick Van Dyke. I grew up watching this man. On television it was The Dick Van Dyke Show and then The New Dick Van Dyke Show. On the big screen it was Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. His talent, to me, was about as big as it could possibly get. And so I really looked forward to this autobiography.

Van Dyke doesn’t shy away from some of the troubles he had though his career – his battle with alcoholism was moderately well-known – and he doesn’t get maudlin about it.

I don’t know how much of Dick Van Dyke’s life a career were known before, but, not being much of a Hollywood industry follower myself, a fair amount of what Van Dyke writes is news to me. His start on The Dick Van Dyke Show and how it came to be named after him was fascinating.

While I don’t mind a Hollywood book that isn’t a ‘tell-all’ sleazy style of book, Van Dyke goes almost too far in the other direction. He certainly preserves his image as a clean-cut guy (like a real Rob Petrie or a real Dr. Mark Sloan) who has had some struggles. But he also comes across as a bit of a Pollyanna – wide-eyed and innocent to the darker side of Hollywood.

It is nice to see that there are still ‘good’ people in Hollywood, with a strong moral ethic. I have to say, though, that sometimes it felt as though Van Dyke underplayed a few things in his past in order to keep his image clean. While he admits to some marital strife and a divorce and remarrying, he mentions but glosses over the fact that he had an extra-marital affair. He’s not quite the clean-cut angel he would like to be.

This certainly didn’t do anything to dispel my notion of Dick Van Dyke as being one of the few performers I admire. He’s a heck of a talent and by all accounts, a heck of a nice guy to boot.

As a side note, though I’m sure he wouldn’t ever remember it, I met Mr. Van Dyke (sort of). I was a mail-room employee of an entertainment company some thirty years ago. I saw him sitting in the lobby of the company, waiting for a meeting with one of the producers. Though I saw and met a lot of well-known actors come through the doors, this was Dick Van Dyke, and I was willing to risk my job and I walked over, extended my hand, which he took and shook, and I said, “Mr. Van Dyke, I just wanted to say thank you for all the wonderful years of entertainment you brought to me.” (I didn’t get fired, and I don’t think anyone knew I did it except for the receptionist (a friend) and my buddies in the mailroom. But I’ll repeat it now:

Mr. Van Dyke, I just wanted to say thank you for all the wonderful years of entertainment you brought to me … and now to my children as well.

Looking for a good book? My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business is an autobiography by Dick Van Dyke that reads a little passively and perhaps a little too idealized from the authors point of view, but is informative and provides some insight to a nice guy we’ve almost all seen and loved.